Frozen
by Gamma Orionis
Summary: Draco's life with Astoria is in a particularly miserable state when he sees the crazy girl picking flowers in his garden. Written for Lady Phoenix Fire Rose's One Hour Challenge and Lolaaaa's Harry Potter Fanfiction Festival on the HPFC forum.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: Written for the 4H level of Lady Phoenix Fire Rose's One Hour Challenge on the HPFC forum, with the pairings Draco/Astoria and Draco/Luna and the prompts "Insanity, Night, Walk among the clouds"

Also for Lolaaaa's Harry Potter Fanfiction Festival on the HPFC forum with the category of Draco/Luna multichapter, and the prompts "Ice, Soul, Hollow, Reflection, Drowning".

Dedicated to the Druna Appreciators Society forum, and especially to my dear friend Alphadoggg, as a rather belated birthday present… hopefully the length will make up for the lateness?

Banner: http: / /pics. livejournal. com/gamma_x_orionis/pic/0000ph5p

10 000 words all told. Contains infidelity, fade-to-black sex and possibly clinically insane!Luna. Enjoy!

)O(

Draco came home late one night to a manor with a light blazing in his wife's window.

He had been expecting Astoria to be asleep by the time he arrived – in fact, he had been counting on it to help him avoid an altercation. He should have known better, though… his wife was hardly the sort who would have gone to sleep if she thought that he would be out late. She would (and had, he realised) stay up until the moment he came in, to demand where he had been.

Why Draco should have to justify himself to her in his own house was beyond him, he thought, as he unlocked the door and crept slowly up the stairs, dreading what would meet him when he came to his and Astoria's bedchamber. He was the man of the house, and yet Astoria seemed to hold him accountable to her, even though marrying her had been below Draco's station, and she _should_ have been constantly grovelling at his feet, trying to prove to him that she would be a devoted wife and worth his hand in marriage.

He opened the door of the bedroom and peered in. Astoria was in bed, lying beneath the quilt with her nose buried in a book, and she did not look up when Draco came in, but she did speak.

"You're late."

"I know that," he said rather more snappishly than he had intended to. He pulled off his travelling cloak and threw it over the back of a chair, trying to avoid his wife's eyes.

Astoria set down the book she was reading and gave her husband a sharp glare, as cold and piercing as icicles. "You never speak to me anymore. You're always out on business."

"I am not!" Draco protested with more than a hint of annoyance, turning back to her. "And my work for the Ministry is very important, as you ought to know. It's no easy task having to rebuild your family's reputation from the ground when everyone _knows_ that they were Death Eaters."

"So you've told me," said Astoria coolly. "You've told me over and over and over again, and I still don't understand why having to rebuild your family's reputation means that you can't be bothered to spend any time with your wife."

"You are being stupid, Astoria," Draco told her, a note of sheer impatience joining the annoyance in his voice. "Why is it that you cannot accept the idea of me having any life outside this house?"

There was a silence, and Draco felt a sinking, twisting feeling in his chest that suggested he had just crossed a line. Astoria's hands began to shake, and her nails dig into the deep green silk of the bedspread, a flush rising in her cheeks.

"You know, _Draco_," she said, and he could hear how she was forcing herself to sound calm, "It's just possible – and only _just_ possible, I'm sure," she added, her voice dripping in sarcasm, "that _maybe_ I don't like you being out night after night because I know adultery runs in your family."

Draco's throat tightened and his stomach sank. "How dare you even say that, Astoria?" he whispered, physically trembling in anger. "How _dare_ you?"

"Don't pretend like you don't know just exactly what I'm talking about." Astoria sounded more than a touch smug. "Your mother and your uncle, for example… I heard that they had a very… _intimate_ relationship–"

"What my mother did with her brother in law is none of my concern and even less of yours!"

"Or your father and that woman… what was her name? Alice something…"

"Be quiet!" Draco ordered. He grabbed his wand from the pocket of his robes and aimed it down at Astoria. She only laughed at him, an ugly sneer curling upon her lips.

"You do know what I mean, then," she breathed. She was like a spider, Draco thought, trapping him in a sticky web until he was forced to confess that he had heard of his parents' adulterous behaviour. His mother's especially – her all too well publicised love affair with Rodolphus Lestrange – made him ill to think of– and it was something he'd thought about far more than he would have cared to.

"I've heard some even worse rumours about your father, actually," Astoria continued. "I've heard not only that he'd been unfaithful to your mother, but also that he's happened to take some very… unusual… lovers."

"I'm sure that I don't know what you mean."

"Oh, don't you, Draco? There was that little incident with the p–"

Draco whirled around and started for the door.

"Running away from me?" Astoria demanded. He heard her feet hit the floor and then felt her hand on his shoulder, twisting him around to face her again. "You're running away, are you? You think that you can get away from those accusations about your parents just by stalking out? And do you think – are you really so damn _stupid–_"

"You watch your mouth when you speak to your husband!"

"So damn stupid that you'd believe that what your parents did shouldn't make me wonder if you'd do the same to me?"

Draco was silent, and so was Astoria. They glared at each other, her having to tip her head back so she could look up and meet his eyes.

"No," he hissed. "I'm not going to listen to this, you little _bitch_. Do you _hear_ me? I'm not unfaithful and I won't take your accusations that I am!"

Astoria opened her mouth to say something more, but before she could get a word out, Draco had pushed her backwards and stormed away.

"Don't you walk out on me!" she cried, but he did not listen, and he slammed their bedroom door behind them, and then stormed down the sweeping spiral staircase and out the front door. Only when he was out of the house, feeling the night air against his face, did he stop, calm himself, and lean against it, resting his head on the metalwork that decorated the wood.

Bloody Hell, why did things have to be so hard?

He knew well enough that he would not be welcome back into the bedroom tonight. Knowing Astoria – _that spiteful little bitch_ – she'd probably locked the door from the inside to be sure he couldn't get back in.

Well, good. Fine. He didn't want to sleep in the same bed as her in any case. He'd far prefer to spend the night in one of the dozens of spare rooms in Malfoy Manor – there were ones far better than the one he and Astoria (Astoria, really – he had had little choice in the matter) had chosen as the master bedroom. Ones far away enough from where his wife was to sleep, he thought with a sneer, that he might even be able to have lovers in them and she would never know.

But he did not keep lovers, because what woman would _dare_ to be the wrecker of Astoria Greengrass's – _Astoria Malfoy's_ – home? She, Astoria, and Draco were too well known for an affair to be carried out in secret, even with the most discrete of ladies. And most ladies were not discrete.

It was hardly how Draco would have preferred things to be – but then, it did mean that Astoria was not keeping lovers either. Perhaps there was some benefit to it, then.

Really, though, if Astoria did keep lovers, would he care? What did it matter to Draco if she was having a dozen men in her bed? He had long since admitted to himself, in the very darkest and most brutally honest corners of his heart, that he didn't love her – such was the downfall of marriages made for political reasons of preserving reputations – and so, objectively, he should not have cared if she were unfaithful.

And he didn't care much, if he examined himself honestly. He disliked the idea of his wife having lovers because it would indicate that he, Draco, was not good enough, but there was no reason that he would be angry Astoria _personally_ for keeping them.

Oh, but what miserable thoughts were these.

He had come out to clear his mind of these ideas, he reminded himself, so that he might sleep. Thinking nothing but angry and melancholy thoughts about his wife would do him no good, and only make him angrier and thus less likely to sleep well.

He breathed in a lungful of the warm, fresh July night air, seasoned with the smell of roses and fresh grass and all the flowers that Astoria insisted on being grown in the gardens, held it for a moment, then let it out in a slow whistle, then sank down onto the ground and plucked a stray blade of grass out of the earth. He twirled it lightly between his fingers, wondering idly if it was presently worth trying to work out how to whistle with it. Blaise Zabini had shown him how to when they were in third year, back at Hogwarts, but Draco had never really gotten the knack, though he had managed a few feeble notes when Blaise's hands had been firmly over his to keep the blade of grass in place. And he had not practiced in years and years – more likely than not, he would simply produce one of the ridiculous and disgusting sputtering noises that he had made when first learning.

He did raise it to his lips though, and gave a tentative blow, then jumped and nearly dropped it as an ear splitting shriek from the blade of grass pierced the air. It fell from his fingers and his heart pounded as he stared down upon it with some degree of trepidation.

Maybe he _had_ picked up the knack after all…

The loud noise had set his heart to thumping once again, and he dared not pick up another piece of grass, for fear of making another such incredible noise – and Astoria would kill him if he tried to pick a flower from her precious beds.

Perhaps he would walk around for a bit to calm himself. That would give Astoria a chance to calm down as well, and then he could go back in and pretend utter shame and repentance for his behaviour – though he felt nothing but sullen irritation at the way that she had treated him – and then Astoria would sigh and say that no, it was all her fault, and Draco would tell her that it wasn't while internally saying that it was, and then they would embrace and perhaps make love, and all would be forgiven. Oh, it would only be forgiven until the next night when Draco was not home early enough for his wife's satisfaction, but surely that was better than nothing.

He stood up and started down the steps and along the garden path. It wound about the grounds in a labyrinth so complex that if you were concerned about stepping on flowers (which Draco, luckily for him, was not) then you might get all the way to the other side of the grounds while still wandering the maze and never work out how you came. You might not even be able to get back, if you were _particularly_ concerned about the wellbeing of the flowers, even though from even the furthest corners of the grounds, you could see the manor.

Of course, Draco was more than willing to trample across flowerbeds – his wife's carefully manicured and tended ones, at any rate – to get back to the house. He had no particular care for them.

He set out along the winding path, intending to follow it until he grew bored and then cut across the flowerbeds to get back in. As he walked, he stared with dazed, glassy eyes upon the ground.

There were the narcissus that he had insisted be planted in his mother's honour. Astoria had balked, saying that narcissus did not fit with a proper English garden, not amongst roses and pinks and such, but Draco had been firm, and so they had been given a small patch, nearly out of the sunlight entirely, but still present.

Draco felt a surge of indefinable anger, quite separate from either the exasperation's with his wife's accusations of infidelity or the injustice that Draco should have to argue so vehemently to get so much as one single, small patch for his mother's honour in a garden so large that, by rights, belonged to him. He brought his foot down hard and smashed a quickly going to seed crocus beneath his shoe.

At that moment, for reasons alien to Draco, he hated Astoria completely. Everything wrong in his life – even the way in which he was treated by the others at the Ministry of Magic, which had everything to do with his parents being Death Eaters and nothing whatsoever to do with Astoria – was her fault, and he was ready to kill her for it.

Draco stopped in the path and let his head fall back, breathing deeply. That was foolish. Astoria was not at fault for _every_ wrong in his life – some of them, yes, like that he could not stay a minute late at work for fear of being interrogated upon stepping inside, or that his own manor had been taken forcibly from him, but far from _all_ – and it was nothing short of foolish for him to treat her as though she was. She had _not_ caused the second war, she had _not_ forced his parents to side with the Dark Lord, and her other crimes… why should he be so angry about them in any case? He had no interest in the gardens, except for the patch of narcissus, and as for his supposed affair… it need not worry him, he told himself. After all, he had nothing to fear as long as he had nothing to hide.

And he was quite innocent. _Quite_ innocent.

He was still, contemplating his own innocence, but his heart all but stopped when he heard a quiet rustling from some distance down the path.

Draco jumped at the sound, his hand springing to his wand again. He stood as still as the statues that lined the gardens (Greek statues, gifts from his father to his mother many years ago, and very handsome in their stately and classical poise) and waited to hear it again. Perhaps, he thought, gripping his wand so tightly that he could feel blood draining out of his knuckles, it was simply a small animal that had wandered in. Perhaps it was nothing more than a fox, he told himself. Yes, that was it. It was surely simply a pest – an irritant, yes, but nothing to be so nervous over.

Then there was another rustle.

It came from the rosebush.

The rosebush was Narcissa's, and before her, it had belonged to some other woman in the family, and before _her_ it had been some _other_ woman, and now it was Astoria's, though she hardly ever cared for it. She had not planted it, and thus, it did not interest her.

"Who's there?" Draco called, aware that if it was indeed no one, then he would feel extremely foolish, and if it was someone, there was every chance that they would not answer and an equally great chance that the answer would be something he did not like.

There was no more sound, but, squinting down the path at the bush, he thought he fancied to see a pair of hands slowly parting the branches as though to peer out at him.

He started forward in long strides, holding his wand out in front of him. If it was – as he doubted, but still hoped – simply an animal and the hands were a figment of his imagination, then no harm done. He would go to the bush and see nothing more than a frightened little fox, he would scare it away – perhaps stun it and throw it over the garden walls – and then he would go back to bed, satisfied that there were no intruders in his grounds. And if it were _not_ an animal… if it were indeed a human trespassing upon his property… well, then, his reaction would have everything to do with who exactly it was.

Draco reached the rosebush at last and stepped around it, staring down at the ground to see his uninvited guest.

He had to say, it was not a sight that he had been expecting.

A pale girl, barefoot and wearing an icy white dress that made her already fair complexion look positively pallid, was kneeling in the flowerbeds, slowly plucking white roses off the bush, apparently oblivious to the blood running down her fingers. Her head was bowed, and blonde hair, glinting in the light from Astoria's window, shielded her face from Draco's sight.

"You!" Draco shouted, holding up his wand. "Who are you? Get out!"

The girl seemed not in the slightest startled by his shout. She lifted her head very slowly and turned around, and he was met with a pair of large, protuberant, all too familiar silver grey eyes.

"Luna Lovegood?"

"Yes…" Her voice still had the dreamy, serene quality that it had always possessed, but it was thinner than it had once been, strained slightly, as though she had not used it in a long time. There was an eerie lilting tone to it as well – half song as well as half speech.

"Why are you here?" Draco demanded. His voice shook for reasons he could not understand, and he raised his wand in a trembling hand to point it at Luna.

She looked up at him and stood slowly, floating forward. The white roses she had been gathering in her arms cascaded to the ground and she stepped through them, pausing ankle-deep in icy petals. She looked, from the delicate, almost ethereal way she moved, like she was walking among clouds rather than against the murdered corpses of flowers.

"I came to see you, Draco Malfoy," she told him, tilting her head to one side. Her pale hair streamed across her face and shoulders like a white waterfall, glistening in the lamplight from Astoria's room inside.

Oh God, Astoria… what would she think if she saw this?

It was like being inside an illustration in one of the fairy tale books that Draco's parents had bought for him when he was a very small child. He had distinct memories of gallant knights running across girls like Loony Lovegood – or, rather, Luna, Luna Lovegood, the eerie creature before him – and finding them out to be vengeful ghosts, killed, perhaps, by some act or family curse, and the gallant knight had to do something to prevent them from wreaking havoc upon the good, civilized world.

But Luna Lovegood did not look vengeful. Frightening, yes, but not in a way that would have suggested to Draco that she might ever contemplate revenge upon him or his family or anyone, really. She looked far too delicate and frail to want revenge.

"What do you want with me?" he asked. "Why do you want to see me?"

"I should think a lot of people would want to see you," she mused quietly, turning away as though she were no longer speaking to Draco at all. "I should think that a great many people would want to see Malfoy Manor, after what happened here…"

"_Oh_…" Draco let out a soft, half hiss, half sigh of understanding. Yes. Malfoy Manor. Perhaps the Lovegood girl wanted revenge after all – after all, she had been a captive here. It would not be unwarranted. He glanced around quickly. Perhaps she meant to murder him out here in the gardens and leave his body as a warning to others who might dare to entrap a poor, innocent naive little girl simply because she had not realised that she should have fought on the other side of the war from that she did. He tightened his grip on his wand, preparing himself for battle.

But she had no weapons. Her hands were empty, except for the streaming blood from where she had sliced them open upon the thorns of the roses she had been picking.

"The people who kept you here don't live here anymore," he told her, as though he expected that to make any sort of difference. She was crazy after all – always had been – why would he think she would care about who lived here and who was responsible? But he spoke anyhow, with a note of desperation growing in his voice. "I wouldn't have kept you here if I could have made a difference."

"What?" Luna said softly. "I don't understand you."

"If you're here to…" Draco's voice broke and he could barely keep going, "to exact revenge on me, then it won't work. I'm not the one who did those things to you. It's not my fault!" His voice rose almost hysterically at the end.

Luna blinked at him.

"I know it's not your fault," she told him. "I'm not here for revenge. I don't want revenge."

That had not been what he expected her to say. He stared at her, perplexed. "Pardon?"

"I don't like revenge much," she said softly, bending down and picking up a rose. She twirled it slowly between her fingertips. "I think forgiveness usually makes people happier, you see."

"Then what in the _Hell_ are you here for?" Draco demanded, losing patience. As much as he had dreaded hearing that she was here for revenge and was going to kill him and leave his body out here among the flowers for Astoria to find in the morning… at least that would have been a reaction he could have understood. He didn't – _couldn't – _ understand why Luna Lovegood would want to _forgive_ him.

"I just wanted to talk," Luna said. Her voice shook slightly, and she tilted her head the other way. Draco watched her hair slither down her shoulders and back, mesmerized like a snake before a charmer.

"What do you want to talk to _me_ for? I barely know you." He managed to force a note of scorn into his voice. "I thought you had the Weasleys for friends to talk to."

"Ginny Weasley is very kind," Luna told him in a soft tone. "But she's also not the sort of person I want to talk to right now."

"What sort of person do you want, then? An ex-Death Eater? Am I supposed to believe that?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Want to talk to an ex-Death Eater? I can think of a few reasons." His voice began to rise again. "For example, because it's because of us – of them," he added, correcting himself, "that you spent months trapped in a basement, just because we – they – thought that Potter would come to try to save you."

"You – or they – were right," Luna said simply. "Harry did save me."

"Harry Potter was brought to my parents," Draco snapped. "He didn't come to the manor for you!"

"I know," Luna said softly. She closed her hand into a fist, crushing the delicate flower within, and Draco saw blood dripping down her hand. "That's why I didn't go to him, you see. I knew it would be better for me to go to you…"

"About _what_?"

"I'm sorry for ruining your flowers," she told him, as though she hadn't even heard his question. "I didn't mean to hurt the flowers, but I wanted some of them…"

"Don't worry about the bloody flowers!" Draco snapped. "Just tell me why you're here!"

Luna began to hum softly. She closed her eyes and held out her arms, spinning around in slow circles. "I remember being here," she whispered at last. "I remember when they took me in."

"You're mad," Draco whispered, stepping backwards warily. She did look mad, utterly out of her mind, spinning around in bare feet – feet that kept getting stabbed by the thorns of the roses, feet that were streaming blood, though she seemed not to even notice.

"People say that to me rather often," Luna told him, her voice still unbearably serene and sweet, though Draco thought she should have been screaming in pain for the state her feet were in. She must have had thorns digging right up into the muscles – how was she even able to stay upright? Draco had a distinct memory of pricking his finger upon a thorn from his mother's roses when he was young, and crying for hours – he still suspected that there was some kind of venom inside those flowers that made the cuts hurt all the more, though Narcissa, Astoria, Professor Snape and all the books in the library on plants had proved him quite categorically wrong.

But the thorns didn't seem to be hurting Luna – at least, not in any way she was registering. The petals beneath her feet were turning scarlet from her blood now, the clouds she was walking among being stained.

"Stop," he ordered her. "Stop spinning. Stand still. Merlin's sake, you're going to tear the flesh right off your bones. Stop it!"

Luna stopped spinning abruptly. She stood very still, staring at Draco with her head cocked lightly to one side.

_She's sick._

She had to be. There was no other explanation – even the mad girl from Hogwarts that Luna Lovegood had been in Draco's memory hadn't been like this. Stupid, naïve, yes, but not… not like _this._

"Come inside." He dropped his voice to a whisper, glancing nervously over his shoulder at the window where Astoria's light still shone. He would find her a spare room, lock her up in it, and when he had a chance, he could get her out… get her to St. Mungo's, maybe.

Luna had had her arms out gracefully by her shoulders, but at Draco's words, she dropped them to her sides. "I wouldn't want to bother you or your wife."

"My … how did you know I was married?" Draco demanded, flushing slightly. _He should not care that she knew,_ he chided himself. _It does not matter, because she is Luna Lovegood, and Luna Lovegood is most _certainly_ not someone whom I would_ ever_ have romantic thoughts about._

He wasn't taking her inside for anything even close to a romantic reason, he thought almost mutinously. He was just taking her in because the girl was liable to kill herself if left to her own devices – or to ruin the rosebushes, which would be tantamount to suicide if Astoria ever caught her.

"You're wearing a ring." Luna pointed at it with one finger, but her eyes were not accusing. Her lips were curving up into a larger smile than Draco had ever seen her wear before in her life – and she had always seemed to be smiling when he knew her.

"She won't mind," he told her.

This was a flat out lie and they both knew it. Astoria most certainly _would_ mind having a strange woman in the house – and would surely mind even more when she found it that it was Luna "Looney" Lovegood, the girl she had tormented for her strangeness throughout their time at school. But Luna didn't need to know that. She didn't need to know anything. What she needed was a sleeping potion and a locked room…

Draco hesitated a moment, then reached out and took Luna's hand firmly. She held onto it with a surprisingly strong grip – he had been expecting delicate, frail touches to match her waiflike appearance – but he had little time to dwell on it, focussing instead upon dragging her inside.

Luna followed Draco without the protests that he had been bracing himself for. She went with him silently, allowing him to cut with her across the gardens and up to the doors of Malfoy Manor. She was humming quietly.

Draco stopped before he opened the door and looked very seriously at Luna, who was swaying back and forth on her feet and gazing off vacantly into space.

"Luna!" He snapped his fingers before her face, trying to get her attention. "Luna! Listen to me a minute!"

Luna's eyes focussed and she looked at him, blinking her protuberant silver eyes slowly. He could see the reflection of the moon in them, shining as brightly in her eyes as it did in the sky itself.

"Yes?" she asked dreamily.

"Right." Draco's heart was beating quickly, and he took several long, deep breaths to steady his voice before he spoke. "Now, I'm going to let you into the house, and my wife is _not_ going to find out that you're here. If she finds out…" Draco fell silent for a second, imagining in brutal detail what Astoria's reaction would be if she found a strange girl in the house, then shuddered. "Things will be bad if she finds out, all right?"

"Yes," Luna said mildly.

"So I'm going to take you in, and I'm going to put you in a room, and you're not to leave until I say that you… what is it?" Draco broke off as Luna lowered her head slightly to look him dead in the eye.

"I don't much mind being your prisoner," she said quietly.

Draco swore under his breath. "I didn't mean… You _aren't_ my prisoner! You're not a prisoner here anymore for Christ's sakes! You're ill."

"I know," said Luna, in a very quiet, very tremulous little voice. She sounded like a scared little girl, but when Draco opened the door and ushered her in, she did not resist him.

Draco led her swiftly through the corridors, taking her as far as he could manage from the parts of their manor that Astoria would likely to frequent – the parlour, the library, the kitchens and the master bedroom. Luna looked around as she followed Draco, walking swiftly for the most part, but she balked a few times – once to admire a portrait of Abraxas Malfoy, Draco's grandfather, that glared down sternly upon her from above the mantelpiece as though he knew her to be an intruder, and once, for a far longer time, staring at the stairs that led down to the cellar where she had been kept, along with old Mr. Ollivander, as a captive by Draco's family during the war.

"I remember what it was like down there," she said quietly, pointing with one finger, and then allowing her hand to flutter down to her side once more. "I remember being locked in there. I could hear what was happening up in the parlour, you know, and the dining room." A small smile curved upon her lips. "I spent a good deal of time listening to the meetings. They were very interesting."

"Why would you even want to remember all of that?" Draco demanded, his voice shaking a little at the reminder. He had spent every day of his life – every minute, even – since the war had ended trying to forget what it had been like to live in that manor while the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters had been in residence their, and failed – not least because he lived in the manor and it was a constant reminder to him.

"I tried to forget," Luna told him. "But it didn't work very well, you see, and I still remember everything that happened. We had a nail down there, Mr. Ollivander and I – did you know that? We used it when we needed to cut things…"

"I… didn't know that," Draco muttered, unsure what else he could say.

"I wonder if it's still down there," Luna mused. "We left it when Harry came and took us away. It might still be there. Unless you've cleaned it out down there, but I rather imagine that you haven't."

"And why would you think that?" Draco demanded, a bit defensively. He prided himself on his good housekeeping, if nothing else.

Luna turned and tilted her head, considering him very carefully. "Because, you know, if I lived here, and I had a cellar like that where horrible things had happened, then I wouldn't ever want to go down there again. I suppose you might be different, though."

Draco said nothing to that. He had not, if he was truthful, been down to the cellar since the war had ended, but he did not like to tell Luna Lovegood that – it made it seem as though he were afraid.

"There's no shame in being scared of something like that, you know."

Draco swallowed hard. "Pardon me?"

"I said that there's no shame in being scared of something like the cellar, or something like the war. I think that people who are scared of it even now that it's over are a good deal braver than people who aren't."

"And why would you say that?" Draco asked, sneering as though he were indulging her instead of asking a real question.

"Because people who aren't afraid of the war and what happened during it don't really understand it," Luna said, as though it were the most reasonable thing in the world. "Because no one – except maybe someone who's quite mad, and even then maybe not – who understood what the war was like could ever not be afraid of it. The people who don't understand it don't have any reason to be afraid you see – they didn't do anything…"

"You don't make any sense at all," Draco said derisively.

"Oh, I know." Luna was twirling a lock of her hair about her finger now, humming quietly to herself in between words. "Most people do tell me that. But think on it a little while, and you may find it does make a bit of sense."

Draco said nothing. He stared unseeingly into the doorway of the cellar, down the rickety old steps. He had walked up and down those steps, he thought to himself, walked up and down them bringing Luna Lovegood and Mr. Ollivander food. He had stood on those steps, halfway up and halfway down, and wondered what would happen if he just left the door unlocked. He had stood and wondered whether it would be the right thing to do to let them try to get away, even if he knew full well that they would most likely be killed in the attempt. And he had left the door locked.

"I don't blame you," Luna whispered.

"What, for leaving you locked up in there?"

"Yes, exactly. I don't blame you for it. And, you know, as I said, I didn't really mind being your prisoner.

Draco swore again. "You should blame me – you're stupid if you don't."

"I don't mind being called stupid either," she told him, her voice very mild. "I'm rather used to it, you see… mad or stupid."

"Well, I'm still sorry," he muttered. "Even if you didn't mind, I still should have done something. Should have helped. We were at Hogwarts together – I knew you… It's my fault that you were locked in there when I should have let you go."

"It's very noble of you to blame yourself, but you're not right."

"Who are you to say whether I'm right or not?" he demanded, anger boiling up inside his stomach quickly and without warning. "If I want to blame myself for leaving a girl locked up in the basement when I could have helped her, then I bloody well will, whether you think I'm to blame or not!"

Luna fells silent, and the anger in Draco's stomach was replaced almost immediately by guilt. "Oh, damn… I didn't mean…"

"I know you're not really very angry," Luna told him, and God _dammit_, did she have to keep using that infuriating serene little voice? Why couldn't she get angry and shout back at him? Astoria would have. Astoria would never have acted as though what Draco had done was forgivable if it were her that had been locked in a cellar. Not that Astoria ever would have been locked in the cellar… proper Pureblood girl as she was, and her parents taking the Dark Lord's side, albeit not actively enough to stain their records now that the war was over…

"I'm sorry that you're sad," Luna whispered.

"I'm not sad!" was Draco's immediate response. He shook a little, then took a deep breath, calming himself down once again. "I'm not sad. I'm very happy. I have a job and a lovely wife…"

"But you're guilty. You think you are, and that makes life very sad for you."

"I wish you would stop with your bloody analysis!" he snapped at her. "I don't much want to be psychoanalyzed by a mad girl!"

Luna bit on her lips, then nodded and held out her hands for Draco's again. "Then you don't have to listen to me anymore. You can take me to the room you wanted to put me in right now. I don't mind.'

"Good," Draco snapped, and grabbed her wrist hard enough to break it. He dragged her down the hallway, not letting her stop for a second more, even to look at the paintings that lined the hall – paintings so intricate and finely crafted by the hands of the greatest artists of the Wizarding world that even Draco stopped and admired them sometimes. The inhabitants of the picture frames pointed and whispered as they went past, and more then one let out a small catcall, but Draco ignored them and tried to get Luna past fast enough that she would not try to respond.

"Come on," he said, shoving her through the door at the end of the corridor, into one of the guest bedrooms. "You can sleep in here."

Luna stopped dead still in the doorway and stared, slowly twirling a piece of her pale, scraggly hair around one finger. Draco looked around too, rather self-consciously.

The room was, by Draco's standards, not much. It was one of the smaller ones in the manor – perhaps half, or even a third of the size of the master bedroom – and rather sparsely furnished. There was a small window, hung with heavy curtains to block out any light, a bed in the centre of the room that was hung with equally heavy curtains so that one might curl up in it and pull the curtains shut and not suffer any light from outside. A mirror, a little shorter than Draco and just a touch taller than Luna, he would guess, was hanging upon the wall opposite from the door.

Luna drifted forward, and lifted the curtains slightly to peer out. A shaft of pale moonlight cut across the floor, illuminating Luna for a moment before she dropped it again and turned around.

Her eyes fell upon the mirror.

Luna seemed transfixed by it. She moved forward slowly, almost gliding – Draco could have sword she was not touching the ground, from the way she was moving – and held up her hand, her fingers extended before her, reaching out to touch her own reflection. Draco almost asked what she was doing, but kept his mouth shut, allowing her to run her hand slowly over the glass.

"Your mirrors are different from the ones in my home," she said in a slow, hollow voice, and she looked and sounded more like a lost child when she said it than ever. _Does she even have a home?_ Draco wondered, not daring to speak a word for fear of disturbing her. Doing that could be like waking a sleepwalker – and he did not want to find out what might happen if he tried again to bring Luna out of this state.

"I'll just… leave you here," he told her, stepping slowly backwards.

Luna's head inclined a little, as in a nod, but she did not take her eyes off herself in the mirror, and Draco doubted if she'd even heard him. He waited a moment to see if she would say anything more, then turned for the door and slipped out.


	2. Chapter 2

Draco spent the rest of the night in the library, not because he had anything to read in there, but because it was far enough from Luna that he would not have to think about her (though he still did) and close enough to Astoria that if she came out and seemed as though she might be making her way to the room where Luna was, he would be able to stop her before she got too close to their houseguest. He sat at one of the tables, with a book in front of him so that he might justify to Astoria why he had picked this place to sit if she happened to come in and ask, and pondered the fact that a girl he barely knew – except from her being trapped inside his basement years ago – was now in his spare room.

_How in the Hell have I managed to get into this?_

Draco was disgusted with himself. He was a Malfoy, for the love of Merlin! What was be doing offering charity to some poor, stupid girl like Luna Lovegood? He should have sent her straight to St. Mungo's – or better, hexed her for being on his property in the first place. He didn't have to take her in as though he had some sort of responsibility to her – in fact, he shouldn't! She wasn't his responsibility, even if he had wronged her back when he was only seventeen years old. He had wronged Harry Potter and Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley too, and he wouldn't have let them into his house! Not ever, not in a thousand years! If he had seen one of them wandering in the gardens and destroying his wife's rosebushes (even when he, Draco, was angry with his wife) he would have given them a good cursing and made sure they never came back. He would have called the authorities on them. He would most certainly not have invited them into his home.

So why had he invited in Luna?

He was probably making one of the worst mistakes of his life, he thought bitterly. She was probably going to steal everything she could lay her grubby little hands on…

But, then, maybe not. He hadn't known Luna Lovegood well when they had been at school, and even when she was locked in the cellar, he had never really had much to do with her other than bringing her food and occasionally feeling sorry for her and wondering what it would take to get her out without being persecuted by the Death Eaters for insubordination. He didn't know the kind of girl she was, but if he had had to guess, he wouldn't have supposed she was the type to steal.

She looked too damnably pure to steal.

She looked like someone who would fold their hands carefully in their lap and gaze into space with perhaps a dazed little grin and never even realise that there were valuables nearby. She looked like someone that he'd like to smack upside the head, he thought angrily.

But he didn't, really. He didn't want to hurt her. That would be cruel – she was clearly mad, after all, and it would have been terribly rude of him to hit a madwoman. It would be un-gentlemanly, and, if nothing else, Draco tried to be a gentleman where he could.

Especially since the war and the damage it had by necessity done to his reputation…

"Draco, darling? What are you doing up?"

Draco had been so engrossed in his musings about Luna Lovegood that he had not noticed his wife's footsteps, and did not realise that she was standing by his shoulder until he spoke. The sound of her voice made him jump, and he whirled around, heart pounding, terrified that she had found Luna until he saw that her expression contained no anger, only bland concern.

"Oh… Astoria," he said, trying to stop his heart from hammering. "I couldn't sleep…"

"Why not, love?"

"I don't like sleeping in a bed without you," he lied smoothly. It was easy to say, and Astoria beamed when she heard it.

"Draco, love, I'm so terribly sorry about our fight last night," she said, sitting down beside him and reaching out to take his hand. "I should not be so suspicious – I love you, you know…"

"I know," Draco said, though he was thinking no, no you don't, Astoria, you little shrew. You don't love me – you just hate fights more. Because you have no spine.

"I don't like being angry," she whispered, batting her lashes in his direction. "You know that. When I start treating you that way… really, Draco, you ought to just tell me off."

"I don't like telling you off, my sweet." He was still forcing lies, and they tasted bitter on his tongue. He wouldn't have to lie to Luna, he thought suddenly, and then hurried to cast the thought aside. How could he even consider being in this situation with Luna Lovegood? She was a wholly different woman from Astoria, with different interests and different ways of fighting (he was sure) and to compare them did no one any good. _Moreover_, he thought, and felt a flush creeping up the back of his neck, _he was not married to Luna Lovegood._

_Thank God._

"Now let's not ever fight anymore," Astoria said, as though it were that simple. They had made pacts of that nature in the past, and the promise not to fight never held up for longer than a few days, and then Draco would come home too late for Astoria's satisfaction and she would accuse him of infidelity once again, and the promise would be forgotten. But he could not say that to her, because she was his wife, and to say that would be to sound ungrateful, and rude, and yes, un-gentlemanly.

"Of course, love," he said. "Let's never fight again."

It was a hollow promise, and it matched the hollow feeling that was growing in the pit of Draco's stomach with every passing second in which he looked at Astoria. He wanted her to leave so that he did not have to see her anymore and perhaps go visit Luna instead…

What was he _thinking?_

What did it say of him that he would rather spend his day with an insane woman than with his own wife?

"I'm going to go out with Pansy today," Astoria said, standing up and breaking the awkward silence that had settled between them. "We're going out shopping… if that's all right with you, I mean," she added, and despite their promise, made only seconds ago, not to fight, Draco thought he noted a touch of scorn in her voice.

"Yes, of course it's all right," he told her. "Have a good time," he added as she began for the door, but he was thinking only _I do hope that this will allow me some time with Luna._

The time before Astoria left for her shopping trip with Pansy seemed to last forever. Draco hung about the kitchen while she prepared her breakfast and a pot of coffee (if he had had his way, he would have house-elves doing it, but Astoria insisted that house-elves were going out of fashion and that people keeping them were being branded as slave drivers – no thanks to that thorn in both Draco and Astoria's sides, Hermione Granger, and her stupid little "Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare"). But, at long last, Astoria stepped into her shoes and pulled on her cloak and said not to expect her back for dinner, and then fluttered out, and Draco was alone in the house with Luna Lovegood at last.

He stood in the doorway, staring after his wife for a moment, then bolted for the room where he had left Luna during the night. He could not remember ever running so fast, his feet pounding against the floorboards at such a pace that it was a wonder he did not slip and fall and break every bone in his body. More than once he had to grab onto the walls to keep his balance. The portraits stared at him with profound confusion while he ran, but he paid them no mind, and wrenched open the door, almost falling in. He had no idea what it was that was drawing him to her so strongly that he could not bear the idea of walking, but it was _something._

Luna was lying upon the bed – asleep, Draco could only assume – with her arms and legs stretched out to the sides. It – the bed – was of such a size that she was not quite reaching the edges, even with her limbs all fully extended. Her hair was spread upon the pillow around her head as though she were lying, drowned, in water, and her eyes were shut. Draco was reminded of a Muggle poem that Astoria had told him about once, about a lady who was loved by no one, and so she laid herself in a boat and floated herself down the river to die. Luna looked the way that Draco had pictured that lady – but still, he thought, with a bit of an odd, infuriating, serene little smile on her lips.

"Luna…" Draco said, rather tentatively. His heart was suddenly beating quickly once again… and _what for? _Why was he nervous? This was _stupid, _he chided himself.

"Yes, Draco?" she said, not opening her eyes, startling him a little bit.

He swallowed, then said, "I…" He had _meant_ to say _I think I should take you to St. Mungo's_ – that was certainly what he had thought would be the best thing to say, but he could not quite bring the words to his mouth.

Luna sat up slowly, her hair rippling down over her shoulders. Her head turned and she seemed to look straight at Draco, though her eyes were still closed. He felt a surge of uneasiness – it seemed to him, at that moment, as though Luna Lovegood was able to look into the very depths of his soul. Maybe she _could…_ He had heard stories about people with a talent – _real_ talent, not the rubbish that students were expected to believe of their divination teachers – for seeing into people's hearts, their minds, and _especially_ their souls going mad from all the secrets and information that they knew. Perhaps Luna Lovegood had acquired such a skill, and that was how it had come to be that she had turned from the bright, quirky little girl he had seen when they were at school to this eerie little waif.

But then she opened her eyes again, and they were quite ordinary, and bore no signal of holding deep, troubling secrets.

"I…" he began again.

"Do you love your wife very much?" Luna interrupted. Her voice was suddenly quite as bright and cheerful as he had ever heard it, and somehow, that unnerved him just as much as hearing her speak in troubled, quiet tones. "Do you love Astoria?"

"Yes," Draco said immediately. He did not pause to give it even a second thought – how could he? If he did, then he might hesitate, and might not be able to answer _yes… _and _yes_ was the only appropriate answer that he could give to this question.

"Please don't lie to me," she said softly, and once again, Draco wondered whether it was possible that she was seeing into his soul. How else could she know that he was lying? Surely he was not so obvious as to give it away merely from his body language, or the fact that he was keeping her here without his wife's knowledge. But Luna was looking straight at him, and he felt quite certain that no matter what he said right now, she would know the truth – the whole truth – and manage to get it out of him in some way or another.

Draco swallowed hard, fighting the urge to display panic upon his face. "I… love my wife," he repeated, though he was well aware of the uncertainty in his tone.

"Do you love her more than anything in the world?" Luna asked him, and he noticed a very defined sadness in those wide, grey eyes, though he knew not why it was there.

"I love her… I love her as any husband should love his wife," Draco said, trying to give diplomatic answers without simply lying. It was not easy.

"But you're unfaithful to her."

"I am not!" he protested. "I've never laid a hand on another woman, not since we were married, and–" fresh anger seethed in his core, making him clench his fists against it, "and _you_ will _not_ accuse me! You don't have any evidence!"

"I know that you've thought about me," Luna said, and Draco's stomach sank once again. "I know that you're thinking of me right now."

"How do you know that?" he whispered, then winced for not denying it.

"I know a lot of things, Draco Malfoy…" Luna whispered, rising up onto her knees onto the bed and moving forward, touching his cheeks with fingers scarred from the thorns of last night's roses and as cold as ice against his skin.

"You're mad! Mad! I'll… I'll take you to St. Mungo's and have you thrown in with the Longbottoms!"

"No, you won't," Luna said dreamily. She let her hands fall, and sank back against her pillows. "If I'm gone, who are you going to think about when your wife isn't being the way you'd like her to be?"

"I could find someone else!"

"But you won't."

Draco fell silent, and stared at Luna. She shut her eyes again, stretching out upon the pillows, and he watched her, both profoundly confused as to what to do, and with a growing touch of an idea in the back of his mind.

He had not been unfaithful to Astoria because it would be a stain upon his reputation. Women gossiped, and Draco feared the power one would have if she decided to let slip that she was in Draco Malfoy's bed. It would be an incredibly fast way to destroy any credibility he had managed to build up since the war.

But Luna Lovegood… Luna Lovegood would not gossip. Luna Lovegood, he thought, more than a little vindictively, did not even have friends to gossip to. If he decided that he wanted her, then his secret would be as safe as it could ever be with anybody…

And why shouldn't he want her, and why shouldn't he have just exactly what he wanted?

Luna's eyes had opened again, and she was watching him, and she began to smile. It was a bright, quite cheery smile, and to Draco, it seemed all but an invitation.

He leaned warily forward and knelt upon the bed, a part of him still expecting some catch, but Luna said nothing as he got closer and closer to her, and when he took a deep breath, pushed all thoughts of Astoria out of his mind, and pressed his lips against hers, her only response was a soft, pleased sigh.

Draco raised one hand to grip Luna's breast through her fluttery white dress. He felt her nipple go hard under his hand, and she gasped.

Yes, Draco thought. He most certainly wanted her…


	3. Chapter 3

"Draco?" Luna murmured, while they lay in bed in the aftermath. Draco's arms were looped around her waist, and he was breathing heavily in her ear, but Luna seemed hardly aware that they had just made love. She twisted around to look at him over her shoulder. "I think there's something that I should tell you."

"What is it?" Draco asked. With Astoria, he _loathed_ talking after sex, because it so often led to some discussion of his faults, but he rather suspected that Luna was not going to accuse him of anything.

"I'm married."

"_What_?" Draco sat bolt upright, jerking away from Luna as though he had been burned. "You're _what_?"

"Married. I didn't think that you would sleep with me if you knew, so–"

"You tricked me! You lied!"

Luna blinked at him. "You didn't ask me if I was married, so I didn't lie," she said, as though that were obvious. "I suppose I did trick you, though. But since you're married too…"

"Oh, don't you _dare_ bring up Astoria!"

"But you cheated on her," Luna said reasonably, "so why does it upset you that I would cheat on my husband?"

Draco had no answer for that.

"And, you know…" Luna continued, "I'm not really as mad as you think I am."

"Oh, that's a laugh…"

"It's true," Luna said. "I'm really not very mad. I don't like this house very much, though," she added thoughtfully. "I thought I felt a little different around it, so maybe it's quite right of you to think I'm mad when you've only talked to me while I'm here."

"Did you just come to…" Draco had to struggle to find words through anger, "to make me feel guilty for letting you stay locked up in here and then have me cheat on my wife? Is that the _only _thing you came here for?"

"I didn't mean to make you feel guilty," Luna told him. "You did that yourself."

"You're avoiding my question!" he snapped.

"I didn't mean to make you cheat on your wife either. You _also_ did that yourself."

Draco's mouth opened and closed several times in quick succession. He felt like a fish, and suspected, from what he could glean from his reflection, out of the corner of his eye, that he looked rather like one too.

"I don't think you should be ashamed," Luna told him. "People shouldn't be ashamed to be happy."

_As if I care what you think I should feel!_

Draco's fists clenched, and he managed to say, "I'm not _ashamed_, and certainly not because I'm happy. What I am is angry at you for coming into my house, playing like you're insane when you're obviously not, and then seducing me!"

"Oh," Luna said, rather softly. "Would you like me to go, then?"

"_Yes!_" Draco all but screamed. He grabbed her by her shoulders and shook her roughly back and forth, as though by doing that, he would somehow force sense into her. "Yes! Get out! And don't you dare _ever_ come back!"

Luna swallowed, then sat up in bed and started gathering the shreds of her dress. She stood and looked in the mirror, draping what remained of it artfully over herself and tearing a strip off the bottom to bind it around the waist so that she was covered. Draco thought she looked even more eerily gorgeous now than she had when she was full nude, but he crushed that thought.

She turned back to him and smiled.

"I had a very good time here with you, Draco," she told him, and then she twirled around, her hair and the remains of her dress fanning out around her, and disappeared.

Draco stared at the spot where she had gone. A dull, throbbing ache had begun to pulse, somewhere deep within him – a hollowness far worse than what he had felt before, as though he had not eaten in months and months. He felt like his insides were trying to consume themselves, making the hole inside him grow even larger, and a cold feeling was starting up too. It was like having ice grow in the very centre of his stomach, and he could have sworn, as he stared at the spot where Luna Lovegood – Luna, the girl he had kept as a prisoner, Luna, who had forgiven him to that, Luna, who might be mad and might not – had disappeared, that he was feeling it creeping up his spine and wrapping frozen fingers around his heart.

)O(

_Fin_


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